Becoming What?
by mistymidnight
Summary: Dawn’s thoughts after Buffy runs away between seasons two and three.
1. Regret

Becoming What?

mistymidnight

Summary: Dawn's thoughts after Buffy runs away between seasons two and three.

Author's Notes: When she reviewed "Why Me?"gidgetgirl requested, "I'm sort of in the mood for a more epic little Dawn fic from you, but one that has a bit of a more driving concept". Well, it just so happens that I was toying with the idea of this fic, but I wasn't sure whether I should do it because I'm so well known (ha! I like to kid myself) for my humorous Little Dawn stories. I'm not one to be typecast, so I decided to do it just before gidgetgirl's review came in. Read, review, and enjoy.

            P.S.—I'm going to write this in the first person. I know, I know, groans from everyone because they hate the first person. But I felt that Dawn's feelings would be more realistic if I didn't have to write "Dawn thought" after every sentence.

            P.S. Again—This is going to be a multiple-chapter story. I know this one's kinda short, but there will be more soon.

Dedication: To all the people who read my fics and especially those who review them as well. To gidgetgirl, for requesting a more epic Dawn story, and to my friends Ashley and Kelly—we'll have the Buffy DVD Night soon! (I hope.)

            Her room is empty. 

            The whole house seems quiet. Not that Buffy was loud before, but the whole house seems silent, like it's holding its breath, waiting for her to come back. Who knows if she ever will?

            She could be dead, or cold, or hungry. She could be kidnapped, or tortured. 

            And she's only been gone three days.

            Okay, I can rule out cold. It's May in Southern California, after all. But what if she's not in California?

            She was saving money in her room. I know she was, because I'd borrow a little occasionally. I'd always pay it back when I got my allowance, though.

            I borrowed five dollars from her a week ago. I was going to pay it back today.

            Too bad she isn't here.

            Five dollars could have bought her a Whopper or two Happy Meals or some Popcorn Chicken or even a couple boxes of cereal. But she's short five dollars now, and it's my fault.

            But all this is Mom's fault, more than anyone else's. More than Buffy's, more than Angel's, way more than Giles's. If Mom had listened to Buffy, Buffy wouldn't be gone. If Mom had listened, she wouldn't be short a daughter. Giles wouldn't be missing a Slayer, Willow and Xander wouldn't be missing a best friend, Cordelia wouldn't be missing a scapegoat, and Oz would still have her as a casual acquaintance.

            I'd still have a sister.

            And I'd still have a mother.

            Mom acts like Buffy never even existed, and she acts like she never had any daughters at all. I talk to her, she gives me one-word answers. She only talks to me when it's absolutely necessary.

            That's okay, because I decided not to talk to her any more. If I do, I'll end up screaming how much I hate her or crying about the loss of my sister. I can't cry. If I do, it means everything is really happening. It isn't a dream.

            I haven't slept so far at all. There's two more weeks of school, and I have no idea how I can make it through them. My teachers don't know yet. No one really knows yet, and when they find out, they won't really care. As far as they know, Sunnydale just got rid of one more juvenile delinquent. They don't think of her as a sister, a daughter, a friend, a girlfriend, a student, and least of all a Slayer. She's just a number, a word on a permanent record. But she was my sister. 

            Mom sleeps all the time, though. She's called in sick to the gallery  since Buffy left. I think that sleeping is her escape. If she dreams of Buffy, dreams of the way our life used to be, she can hold onto it like a security blanket when she wakes up. If she dreams of how life is now, without Buffy, she can brush it off as a nightmare and move on.

            Sooner or later, though, she'll have to face reality. 

            I won't be there to help her through it. I hate her for the reality she made our life into. 

            I wish it would all just go away.

***********************************************************************************************

Okay, it's probably pretty corny and over-written so far, but I'll try to make it better, I promise. Writing this stuff is a whole lot harder than people think, especially since Dawn wasn't even on the show in the second season, so I have nothing to base her thoughts on except what I think she'd feel like. I'm trying to make it realistic, I really am. Tell me how I'm doing; constructive criticism welcome, but please please please no flames. I'm trying, I really am.

*mistymidnight*


	2. Dispair

Becoming What?

mistymidnight

Summary: Dawn's thoughts after Buffy runs away between seasons two and three.

Author's Notes: This is my second draft of this chapter. Sorry it took so long to update.

 :-)

            Also, the reference to Mr. Gordo, Shady B, and a crime ring pertains to my story Interrogation. Go ahead and read it if you so desire. The whole 'squealing' pun comes from Dorothy4, who reviewed Interrogation and left that hilarious witticism.

            I hate Buffy.

            I hate Buffy, and I hate Mom. I hate Giles and Willow and Xander and Cordelia and Oz. I hate Angel. But I mostly hate Buffy. And Mom.

            Why do they have to be so stubborn? Why don't they trust each other? Why couldn't Buffy trust me?

            I never squealed on her and Angel's late-night kissing fests. That ought to count for something.

            I never told Mom that Buffy came in late every night. I could hear her through the walls. There isn't enough insulation-stuff in this house. I could hear _everything_ that happened in Buffy's room.

            Insulation doesn't matter now, though, because there's nothing in Buffy's room to hear.

            I went in there yesterday in search of Mr. Gordo. I couldn't find him. Then I remembered where she keeps him. She decided to hide him after I questioned his involvement in a crime ring. He squealed on her. Ha, get it, squealed? Well, anyway, I checked the closet, underneath her pile of shoes, and he wasn't there. So she was gone for real, then. Where Buffy went, Mr. Gordo went as well. That's why the case was so easy to crack. Buffy was an obvious partner in crime.

            I went back to my room and filed an arrest warrant for Mr. Gordo, in relation to the disappearance of Buffy Summers.

            Willow came by yesterday. The first thing she did was address Mom: "Hello, Mrs. Summers." Very formal and very not-Willow. Mom had told her a little while ago to call her Joyce. And Willow had started to. But it was back to Mrs. Summers now. Mom didn't object. Instead, she said, "Hello, Willow."

            She used to say "Hello, dear," when Willow came over, but now she calls her by name. I think they're mad at each other, but I'm not sure.

            Willow had cleaned out Buffy's locker and brought her stuff over. "Principal Snyder almost didn't let me," she said, "but Cordy, of all people, pulled some strings, and he let me take her stuff to you."

            This is the worst part of Buffy being gone. Everyone acts like she's dead. For all I know, she could be. And no one bothers to explain things to me.

            I know now that Buffy's a Slayer. Can't say I'm surprised, what with the weird hours and the violent record and the history of overall destruction. But on another level, I'm angry. Why didn't she just tell me? Why didn't Willow? Why didn't anyone?

            Mom took the bagful of stuff from Willow. "Thank you."

            I took it out of her hands. "I wanna see," I said.

            Mom took the bag back gently. "Sweetheart, now is not the time—"

            "Give me the bag." My voice sounded strange, even to me, dark and low and scary. Mom gave it to me.

            I opened it and pulled out some gym clothes—a Sunnydale High School T-shirt and yellow sweat shorts. I pulled out a pile of papers, mostly with big red D's scribbled across the top. I found a progress report, one she probably got issued right before she left. And then I found a stake. Mom gasped when she saw it.

            "Uh, maybe I should, uh, take this," Willow stammered. "I mean…um…if you, uh, don't want it around, I…"

            Mom held up her hand to stop Willow. "I'm keeping it," she said quietly. "It's part of who she was."

            Willow nodded. I went bag to digging through the bag as Mom turned the stake over in her hands, her fingerprints marking its shiny surface. She seemed to notice this and she quickly used her sleeve to polish it. My hands felt the inside of the bag, and I pulled out a bumper sticker. It was torn around the edges, with white lines where it had ripped and been stuck back together on the paper.

            "I managed to pull that off the wall inside her locker," Willow said. "I stuck it on a piece of paper so it wouldn't crumple up and stick to itself.

            It was a Dingoes Ate My Baby bumper sticker. As far as I knew, Buffy was never a huge fan of the band. She liked them and everything, but she'd probably stuck the sticker in her locker to support Willow and Oz more than the actual band.

            "Dingoes Ate My Baby," Mom read, sounding confused.

            "It's a band," I told her. "Oz's band."

            "Oz," she said, trying to place the name.

            "Willow's boyfriend," I told her, "not the city where Dorothy goes."

            "Oh," she said.

            "Because that would be silly," I said, babbling on. The tension was building up and I desperately needed to break it. "I mean, if they, I mean Oz—the city Oz, not the person Oz—formed a band, they could name it something more wizardly, like The Munchkins or The Lullaby League…even though the names? Kinda low on the cool factor."

            Willow smiled at me a little. "You talk just like Buffy."

            "Only when I'm nervous," I said, then realized my slip and continued, "about nothing. Yep, when I'm completely comfy with life, I talk…like…"

            Then I realized what I said again. "Completely comfy with life…" _My life without Buffy. _

            Maybe that's why everyone talks about her like she's dead. Maybe it's 'cuz in some way, she is.

Whew. That took awhile to write. Lucky I can type fast.

More soon…please review! (It gets the old noggin going…)

mistymidnight


	3. Continuing

Becoming What?

mistymidnight

Summary: Dawn's thoughts after Buffy runs away between seasons two and three.

Author's Notes: Ah, my aching neck. It hurts to sit and type, but I felt like updating anyway, so there!

            After Mom and I finished looking through the bag, Willow left. I didn't really expect her to stay. After all, I hate her now. I have to keep reminding myself of this. One side of me wants to talk to her. She was Buffy's best friend, practically her other—better, if you ask me—half, and she might help with all the loneliness. But the other part of me is mad, mad at all of them for keeping such a huge thing from me. Why don't they think I'm trustworthy? Maybe I'm a bad person. Maybe if a vampire was going to eat me or something, I'd tattle on all of them.

            But I never got a chance to find out.

            But maybe now I can.

            While Willow was over ,she mentioned something about patrol. Tonight. Maybe I can get out. There's this girl down the street, Janice, who can cover for me. Her mom is always working at her law firm. I can tell Mom I'm going to Janice's, and if she calls while I'm supposed to be there, Janice can cover and tell her I'm asleep or in the bathroom or something. Mom would never let me go out on patrol.  That's how she lost Buffy, I guess.

            So patrol was a bust. I chickened out. Plus, it was Janice's mom's day off. So, no-go.

            Besides that, this is the last week of school for me. The elementary school is always the last school in town to get out for summer. All we do for the last week is play Connect-Four and hangman, but Mom makes me go anyway. It'll be so much easier to sneak out once summer gets here.

            Mom went back to the gallery today. She sent me down the street to Mrs. Jameson's house after school. I hope I don't have to go there all summer. Her house smells like stale Cheerios and tuna fish.

            The news finally got out about Buffy. It was in the police blotter in the paper a week ago. At first everything was normal, but now every day people come up to me and ask me if my sister killed somebody. I keep saying no. But then they ask if my sister is Buffy Summers, and I tell them yes. They usually say something like, "Then she _is _a killer!" and rub it all in my face. Kirstie says that to me on a daily basis. Every time she does, I want to cry.

            Miss Strauss, my teacher, took me aside today. "Dawn," she said, "I've heard what the other students have been saying to you. I'm not here to ask whether what they're saying is true or not, but I wanted you to know that you have an extremely bright future, Dawn. Whatever may be going on at home and with your sister, I know you can rise above it. Just believe in your abilities."

            I nodded, trying not to cry. Someone _believed_ in me. Someone _trusted _me. Buffy and everyone obviously didn't trust me. Mom doesn't tell me anything. It's a refreshing change of pace.

            When I left for the bus, Kirstie yelled, "Don't forget, Dawn! You hafta bring your big sis some cookies—in jail!"

            I started for the bus.

            _You can rise above it._

            I turned around and walked up to Kirstie. She smirked at me and run her finger along her eye, blending her eyeliner, which she has no point in wearing anyway. Mom says I'm too young to wear makeup, and, personally, I agree, especially if it makes me look like Kirstie, whose eyes always have some bluey-silver gunk smeared all over them.

            "Did you read the rest of the article?" I asked her. "How she's skipped town?"

            Kirstie chuckled. "If I lived with you, I'd skip town, too."

            "How do you know I'm not gonna go home and call her up and tell her that you're bothering me?"

            Kirstie may be dumb, but she isn't completely brain dead. "S-so what?" she demanded. But I could see it. She was afraid.

            "All I'm saying is, it might not be a good idea to make the sister of a possible murderer angry."

            I turned around and went to my bus, leaving her there. I'll remember the look on her face for the rest of my life.

            I won.

            In the middle of the night I woke up. Something was in Buffy's room. I ran in. There was nobody there. There never is. I always wake up because I hear something, but it's always nothing. It will always be nothing.

            Buffy's gone. And it's time I accepted it.

Okay, another update done! More soon!

mistymidnight


	4. Moving On

Becoming What?

mistymidnight

Summary: Dawn's thoughts after Buffy runs away between seasons two and three.

Author's Notes: I just realized I haven't updated this story in nearly three months. Whoops. I wanted to update tonight because I was in the mood for some Dawnie angst. I guess I'm like Joss in that way--pain, good. Kitties and rainbows--boring. Okay, given the extreme amount of fluff fics I write, that's most definitely a lie. But cut me some slack. It's been a rough day.

Also, I'm using Word Pad instead of Microsoft Word, so I'm doing without the usual bells and whistles, i.e. Spellchck. As always, this fi is unbeta-ed. I am my own beta reader, which explains the numerous mistakes. =)

Last night I had a weird dream.

Buffy was sitting in a taxi cab, and I was driving. We passed a playground and Buffy looked outside. "Enjoy is, Dawn," she said.

"Enjoy what?" I asked her.

She gestured around. "Enjoy life. You know, playgrounds, back-to-school shopping, the new car smell." She smiled thinly and leaned forward. "I think you have another customer," she remarked, pointing to the side of the road. Mom was standing there with a black umbrella, even though it wasn't raining. Buffy sighed and clucked her tongue. "She just can't pull off the Mary Poppins look. Spoonfuls of sugar and all that."

I passed Mom and then realized I didn't know how to drive. The car sped out of control and crashed into a statue of a cow that had appeared in the middle of the road. I twisted around and looked at Buffy. a trickle of blood appeared at the corner of her mouth and began to drip down her chin. "So much for enjoyment," she groaned.

And then she collapsed.

I felt gross when I woke up. I was all sweaty and my hair was sticking to the back of my neck. My nightshirt was clinging to my back and my legs were slippery when I turned over onto my side. I checked the clock on my nightstand. Two-twenty-six. I didn't care how early it was. I felt disgusting and I had to take a shower.

I grabbed a pair of shorts, a tee-shirt, a new pair of underwear, and a bra from my bureau. I started wearing a bra this summer. Okay, so it's just a training bra and not a really-real bra, but it's a bra just the same. If Buffy were here I could have gone shopping with her, and we could have laughed about how much we really didn't want to be shopping for bras. Then we could go to the food court and split a pizza and I have to stop thinking about this. The dream gave me a weird sense of...something. Not comfort, that's for sure, and not closure. But I felt energized. I took my clothes to the bathroom and turned the water in the shower on. Normally I like the water super-hot, like a sauna, but tonight I set the temperature a little cooler. I was still all sticky and hot from the dream I had, and I didn'treally want to get sticky and hot all over again, because it would defeat the point of showering in the first place.

I stepped into the shower and tried to wash away the thing that was tugging at the back of my mind.

After my shower I put on my clean clothes, feeling a little better. I put my hair up in a ponytail and pulled on a pair of sneakers. Ha, sneakers. Kind of a funny choice of words, because that's what I was about to do. Sneak. Well, sneak out and then sneak around a cemetery.

Let me say right now that sneaking around a cemetery at two-thirty in the morning is not a good idea. I never recommend doing it. But I was determined. I grabbed a flashlight and went down the stairs as quietly as I could.

I had reached the door when I heard something in the living room. It was dark, and I couldn't see anything. I flipped on the flashlight and shone it into the living room.

Mom was curled up on the couch, one of the many family photo albums on her lap.

She was crying.

That very second, I forgot about "patrolling". I forgot about my dream and my shower and my grand scheme to sneak out. i walked to the living room and climbed onto my mother's lap, careful not to sit on the album.

She seemed surprised, like she hadn't expected me to come in and see her. But then she opened her arms and I leaned against her and we cried together. I know she noticed the fashlight and my clothes and the gigantic cross I had hung around my neck, but we didn't say anything about that. She just hugged me.

And I knew I had my mother back.

That's not the end. I know it sounds awfully final, but I'll probably update in the near future. No more three-month update lapses.

mistymidnight


	5. Happy Family

Becoming What?

mistymidnight

Summary: Dawn's thoughts after Buffy runs away between seasons two and three.

Author's Notes: I just looked back at the last chapter and noticed that I promised I'd update 'fairly soon' and that I wouldn't leave the story for three months again (which was the interval of time between updates last time). Well, I'm really sorry, 'cause I just went, like, ten months without updating. Sorry!

* * *

Today Mom and I went to the beach.

It was a nice change from all the moping and grumpiness, but at the same time, it was really depressing. Because, la-di-da, here we are, moving on without Buffy, If she came back tomorrow, would she still fit into the family? Maybe we'd be able to squeeze her in, like a puzzle piece that doesn't quite fit. You know, like when you've finished the puzzle and there's only one piece left, but it doesn't really line up with the others. You squeeze it in anyway, but after that, whenever you look at the puzzle, all you see is the squished-in piece, not the whole picture.

Anyway, we drove to the beach—not the Sunnydale beach, but one down the coast a little bit. The Sunnydale beach sucks, as far as I'm concerned.

I never used to say 'sucks' before this summer. I never swore or anything. But things have changed. People swear when they're mad, and, since I seem to be mad the majority of the time, I figure it gives me the right to swear. Maybe they could add it to the constitution: _You have the right to swear, regardless of age, if your life is falling apart._

But anyway, back to the beach. We drove down and parked at one of those meters that's so close to the beach there's sand in the parking spot. Mom let me put the quarters in; I used to love doing that when I was little. It's not so big a deal now; I mostly just do it to keep up appearances. Buffy and I used to fight over who'd get to do stupid stuff like that: who'd put change in the meter, who'd get to ride in the front seat of the car (she did, usually), who'd get to pick the radio station. I'd let her do all that if she'd just come back.

Once we'd parked the car, we found a good spot on the sand. Mom laid out towels and a picnic blanket and put the umbrella in the sand, and I took off the T-shirt and shorts I'd put on over my bathing suit. Mom slathered sunscreen all over me and sent me off to swim or make a sandcastle or look for shells or something equally beach-like. I didn't really feel like doing any of that, so I just kinda sat at the edge of the water, close enough so that when the waves came in they'd spin me around, if I kept my body loose enough. That got uncomfortable after awhile, though, because every time the waves would spin me, they'd get a bunch of sand in my bathing suit. So I waded out into the ocean up to my elbows (with Mom watching me like she was a warden and I was a prisoner, of course) and I shook out my bathing suit. I could feel all the sand brushing past my legs as I emptied it out of my swimsuit. When that was done, I tried to bodysurf back in. After a few tries, I successfully caught a wave and rode it back in. It was kind of fun until the wave got too shallow. Then the wave sort of just dumped me onto the beach. The sand scraped against me and scratched my chin as I landed face down in on the shore. At least there were no shells or something sticking up out of the sand.

I made a sandcastle (or what I guess you could call a sandcastle; it was really just a bunch of lumps with a ditch dug around them to be the moat). I watched some teenagers splash each other and some little kids run away from incoming waves, screaming with delight. Mom sat on our blanket, reading her book. Every so often, she'd glance around and look at me, just making sure everything was still okay, and that the little brother of Jaws hadn't ground my bones to dust or anything.

That got me thinking of all the things that could go wrong on the beach. I could get sucked out to sea by a riptide, never to return, and my body would never be found. If it started thundering and lightning all of a sudden, I could die from electrocution. I could get stung by a stingray, eaten by a shark, or drowned by…seaweed. Seaweed clamping itself around my leg and dragging me down to Davy Jones's Locker (which I think is a very funny, and not at all threatening, phrase. When pirates say it in movies, I know the hero will prevail, because no one who is truly threatening can use the phrase "Davy Jones's Locker" with a straight face. Except in this case, of course, in which I can say it in all seriousness. I read a story in _Chicken Soup for the Preteen Soul_ where this girl drowned because she was swimming in a pool and the cover came off the pool drain and it sucked her feet in and she got stuck and drowned. So drowning by seaweed is really not a very far-fetched idea, if you ask me.).

Anyway, I was thinking of all the ways I could die horrible, sea-related deaths and then I thought, _If I did die, Buffy would never know. _And then I swore (I was finding this newfound swearing right gave me a feeling of just a little more control) and threw a handful of sand into the ocean. The sand clump fell apart in midair and dropped into the ocean in a whole bunch of little clumps: _Bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop. _I watched them for a second, then I got up and rinsed the sand off me as well as I could before walking back up the beach to where Mom was still reading.

"Mom," I said, "I don't feel good. Can we go home?"

"Sure sweetie," she said, and we packed up our stuff and left.

I fell asleep in the car, and when Mom went to wake me up, she said my face felt hot. "Looks like you might've gotten a little sunburned, Pun'kinbelly," she remarked. But I felt dizzy and lightheaded. I added sunstroke to my list of Things That Can Go Wrong At The Beach.

But Mom took my temperature and it was 99.6, so she put me in bed and made me drink a whole pitcher of grape Kool-Aid. She brought the TV up to my room and took the fan from the kitchen up, too. She told me to stay in bed and drink lots of fluids, and that when she went to work tomorrow she'd have Mrs. Jameson look in on me from time to time. I was too tired to argue.

I kept waking up all night, first sweating uncontrollably, then so cold it felt like the walls should have icicles hanging all over them. Every time I woke up, I'd swear and mutter about the beach, and about my ex-sister.

* * *

mistymidnight 


End file.
